


The Time Traveler's Brother

by raving_liberal



Category: Glee
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Canonical Character Death - Finn Hudson, Gen, Sad-But-Happy, Time Travel, time traveler's wife au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-09
Updated: 2013-10-09
Packaged: 2017-12-28 21:35:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/996973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raving_liberal/pseuds/raving_liberal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three days after Finn's death, Kurt hears his brother's voice again, telling him, "I've got you little brother."</p><p>And he does.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s dark now and I am very tired. I love you, always. Time is nothing.”<br/>― Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Time Traveler's Brother

**Author's Note:**

> I woke up this morning with this story in my head, the idea of a non-linear love story between brothers who aren't ready to say goodbye. I'm not ready to say goodbye to Finn Hudson. I don't think Kurt is, either. This is the best I can do to help myself cope with it all, and maybe it can help you a little bit, too. I'm just not ready. How can anyone be ready?

Kurt is 19-almost-20 when his brother dies. He gets the call he never in a million years expected—his dad, maybe, but not Finn, never Finn—and he has to board a flight to Ohio, knowing that when he gets off that plane, his brother won’t be there. 

Somehow, Kurt makes it through the flight without crying. He makes it through hugging his dad, through holding Carole while she weeps into Kurt’s shoulder, through the funeral. He even makes it through most of sorting through Finn’s stuff, until he gets to the letterman jacket. The jacket breaks him.

Kurt slips the jacket on, his arms barely taking up any room in the sleeves and the jacket itself big enough to wrap around Kurt and then halfway around again, if he wanted it to. It almost feels like being held by a much larger person, and for a minute, Kurt closes his eyes, pulls the fabric up to his nose, and breathes in deeply. Finn wore that jacket for three years. Every fiber in that jacket smells like him, the mix of slightly smelly teenage boy, cheap body spray, the apple-scented shampoo he used because that’s what Carole had always bought him. 

Kurt keeps his eyes closed and breathes, and imagines with all his might that it’s Finn there holding him, even though he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that Finn is gone. He’s gone, and someday his smell will be gone from this jacket, and that right there, that’s the thing that finally tips Kurt over the edge. He doubles over from the sudden onslaught of pain, by how hard his sobs come, because there’s a Finn Hudson-sized hole in the world. Who could ever be big enough to fill it? 

He’ll tell himself later it was the grief, that he was imagining things, some kind of hyper-realistic hallucination born from emotional exhaustion, but as Kurt cries, wrapped in the letterman jacket, he hears Finn’s voice.

“I’ve got you, little brother,” Finn’s voice says, and then a pair of large arms wrap around Kurt, holding him tightly. 

“This isn’t real,” Kurt whispers, keeping his eyes squeezed closed. “This isn’t real. You’re dead.”

“Yeah, I know,” Finn's voice agrees. 

“You’re dead, you can’t be here, I’m having a breakdown,” Kurt says.

“It’s okay. It’s all going to be okay,” Finn says. 

“No. _No._ Please stop, please go away,” Kurt begs, shaking his head hard from side to to side. He needs his brain to stop this, _now_. This isn’t comfort; it’s cruelty. “Please stop making me hear him. Please make him go away.” 

“It’ll all make sense later, I promise,” Finn says softly. “I promise.” Kurt can _feel_ the kiss Finn plants on the top of his head. That’s what almost makes him believe. It makes him _want_ to believe, so much that he starts to turn, he starts to open his eyes, but before he can, Finn’s arms aren’t around him anymore. When Kurt opens his eyes, he’s alone, still wearing the jacket that smells like his dead brother. 

***  
Kurt is 19-turning-20-at-midnight, and Finn will never be twenty. Kurt watches the clock as it rolls over from 11:59 on May 26th to 12:00 on May 27th. Twenty sounded like such an _adult_ age when Kurt was a kid, but it doesn’t feel that way now. He doesn’t feel very adult at all. 

“Happy birthday to me,” Kurt sings aloud into the empty loft. “That’s it. I’m eating ice cream.”

He gets up out of bed, wearing just his lightweight pajama pants, and wanders into the kitchen without turning on any lights. Kurt fixes himself a bowl of ice cream, but when he turns to put the ice cream container back into the freezer, there’s someone sitting on the kitchen counter. Kurt screams and drops the ice cream.

“You dropped your ice cream,” the someone says. The someone sounds very familiar. Kurt takes a few quick, panicked steps backwards, fumbling for the light switch. When the lights in the kitchen flip on, Kurt takes another, even more panicked, step backwards, flattening himself against the wall.

The someone on the kitchen counter is a young Finn Hudson.

“Wow,” young Finn says. “You look really young.”

Kurt can’t make his mouth work, not well enough to get out any sound, but if he could, he _might_ have said, “Same goes to you.” The Finn sitting on the counter looks thirteen, maybe fourteen at the oldest, not quite the age he was when Kurt first met him. He’s wearing a pair of cutoffs and a Simpsons t-shirt that’s a tiny bit too short for him. 

“You were way old the last time I saw you,” young Finn Hudson says, and, “Your ice cream’s melting all over the place.”

“Am I dead?” Kurt manages to squeak out. “Did I have a brain aneurysm?”

“No, but you were, like, _forty_ or something!” young Finn says, his eyes widening at the impossibility of being forty. 

“No, I don’t mean... I mean now. This is a mental breakdown, isn’t it? I know they say that schizophrenia often hits in early adulthood, and I _have_ had a recent trauma, so of _course_ my hallucinations would take the shape of the—”

“Oh, crap!” young Finn says, hopping down off the counter. “Is this the first time for you?”

“Do I call 911?” Kurt continues to talk, trying not to look directly at young Finn Hudson in his Simpsons t-shirt, nudging at the broken bowl of melting ice cream with a giant bare foot. “Do I take a taxi to an emergency room? Do you think there’s a special emergency line for mental breakdowns.”

“You’re not breaking down,” young Finn assures him.

“No, I’m definitely breaking down. There’s a fourteen-year-old Finn Hudson in my kitchen, when I know for a fact that _nineteen_ -year-old Finn Hudson died two months ago,” Kurt insists, wheeling on Finn with his finger pointing accusingly. “So _you_ are not real, and that means _I_ have something very wrong with me!”

“Oh,” Finn says quietly. “Yeah, I guess this is the first time for you. I’ve kinda been doing this since forever, so I guess I should’ve guessed probably it would have to be the first time for you at some point, and you’d be all freaked out about it.”

“First time for... I don’t understand,” Kurt says. He lets his arm drop, since it doesn’t seem to have done anything to phase Finn or to make Kurt’s brain stop making him see Finn, and he sits down on the kitchen floor. 

“Do I really look fourteen?” Finn suddenly demands. Kurt gives a weak nod. “Awesome. My thirteenth birthday’s not officially for three more weeks, but I’ve had all this extra time, so who knows how old I am for real, right? Too bad I can’t brag to Puck.”

“Why not?” Kurt asks, since ignoring Finn isn’t getting him anywhere.

“I pretty much never remember it when I get back. I mean, I remember it the next time I go, but not when I’m in normal time.”

“Normal time?” Kurt parrots.

“Yeah, like regular time, moving in one direction time,” Finn explains. He unrolls some paper towels and starts picking up pieces of Kurt’s broken bowl and wiping up the ice cream. “Like how I was outside in the hammock and it was July, and now I’m—oh, when am I?”

“May 27th, 2013,” Kurt says. “It’s my birthday.”

“Cool. Are you and Miguel doing anything fun today?” Finn asks, dropping the paper towels and pieces of broken bowl into the trash.

“Who?”

“Miguel. Duh.” Finn gives Kurt a look that Kurt has seen so many times, the one that asks ‘are you messing with me or am I just not getting it?’, but it’s weird to see it on such a young version of Finn. “Oh, do you not know Miguel yet?”

“I have no idea who you’re talking about,” Kurt says. “Finn, don’t understand what’s happening.”

Finn nods his head, then an odd expression crosses his face. “Oh, I don’t think I’ve got a lot longer. Hopefully next-time-me’ll have time to explain it better.”

“Finn? I don’t understand,” Kurt says, his eyes starting to brim with tears. “Finn, please tell me what’s happening.”

“I love you,” Finn says, and suddenly, it’s as if Kurt is seeing Finn through television static or frosted glass. “Happy birthday, little brother.”

Then Finn is gone, the kitchen is empty again, and Kurt curls up on his side in a little ball on the floor, face buried in his hands, and he cries and cries until he falls asleep there. When he wakes up in the morning in his own bed, Kurt convinces himself it was a dream. He has to.

***

Kurt is 20, and he, Burt, and Carole are celebrating their first Christmas since Finn died. They have coffee and the tree still has a pile of presents under it—it’s like everyone over-bought to hide the spaces where Finn’s presents should have gone—but without Finn’s buoyant Christmas morning joy, the unwrapping feels flat and meaningless. It feels too much like the first Christmas after Kurt’s mother died, which makes Kurt realize that he’s now lost exactly half the family he’s ever had. 

After excusing himself to the restroom, Kurt instead wanders into Finn’s old bedroom. It’s empty of any immediate reminders of Finn; Carole couldn’t handle it, and Burt wasn’t much better. Inside the closet, though, the red letterman jacket still hangs, like it’s just waiting for its owner to come put it on.

“Idiot,” Kurt tells the jacket, taking its sleeve in his hand. The jacket doesn’t answer, because it is just a jacket after all. “He wouldn’t have been wearing a letterman jacket in college, anyway.”

“I don’t know, dude,” Finn voice says from behind him. “I love that thing.”

“Nobody wears their high school letterman jackets in college, Finn,” Kurt says, without turning around. He’s made it seven months without a repeat of the incident on his birthday. Maybe his brain just waits for important dates to send him hallucinations. 

“How do you know? Are you in college now?” Finn asks. 

Kurt turns around. The person standing there is Finn, definitely Finn, though he’s not the baby-faced Finn from Kurt’s birthday. This Finn looks more like he did around the time Burt and Carole got married, a high school junior Finn. Kurt wonders how his brain decides how old Finn should be. 

“It’s good to see you,” Kurt says. Even if Finn is just a hallucination, it is still good to see him. Kurt doesn’t dare try to _touch_ him, but he’ll give himself permission to look. 

“Yeah, you, too,” Finn says, smiling in that familiar, heartbreaking way. “When are we?”

“It’s Christmas,” Kurt says. 

“Which one? You don’t look that much older, but your hair’s different, and you look skinnier,” Finn says.

“2013.”

“Ah,” Finn says. He looks almost guilty. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Kurt replies. “You couldn’t know.”

“No, I mean...” Finn sighs. 

Kurt shakes his head. “Christmas was going to happen one way or another, Finn. The world doesn’t stop, no matter how much some of us wish it could.”

“Well, it does and it doesn’t,” Finn replies enigmatically. “How’s Mom?”

“About how you’d think. Nobody's handling it that well,” Kurt says. “I mean, look at me. I’m having a full blown conversation with a hallucination of my dead brother.”

“Yeah, I guess we still haven’t ironed out the hallucination thing,” Finn says with a little laugh.

“I got an MRI. I didn’t tell my dad, because I knew he would freak out. They didn’t find anything.”

“They won’t ever,” Finn says.

“Because it is, as I feared, purely psychological,” Kurt agrees, nodding his head. 

“No, because I’m a time traveler,” Finn says. Kurt immediately bursts out into a peal of laughter, surprising himself. Finn shakes his head patiently. “No, I’m serious. I’ve done it my whole life.”

“Really?” Kurt asks. “So why did I never see you time travel in the whole time I knew you, which wasn’t an inconsiderable amount of time?”

“I’m never gone from the regular timeline for long,” Finn explains.

“Convenient explanation, but still not convincing me.”

“Did you ever have times where you’d be talking to me, but when you’d turn around, I wouldn’t be there?” Finn asks.

“You wandered off, sometimes,” Kurt says.

“But then I’d be there again, like maybe you just didn’t notice me.”

“You’re stealthy for someone so big,” Kurt counters. “But why did I never meet time-traveling you before your death?”

“I never travel to time earlier than that,” Finn says. “The earliest I’ve been so far was your birthday, and that was a few years ago. Years ago for me, I mean. I’ve been pretty far out, though.”

“You have a lot of inconsistencies, Mister Hallucinated Hudson,” Kurt points out. “Because _I_ know the first time I hallucinated you was three days after you died.”

“But I’m not there yet,” Finn says. “I mean, not in my timeline.”

“This is ridiculous!” Kurt insists.

“You’ll see,” Finn says. 

“Prove it,” Kurt says. “Come downstairs with me now. Let Dad and Carole see you.”

“Kurt,” Finn says sadly. “I can’t do that. It wouldn’t be fair to them.”

“But it’s fair to me?” Kurt demands. “How is it fair to me, Finn? We’ve all already lost you once. Why is it fair for _me_ to keep seeing you? Don’t I deserve to grieve and move forward?”

“It’s not fair, but I can’t help it,” Finn says, hanging his head. 

“Because you’re not real!”

“Because I keep showing up where you are. I always have, way before I had any idea who you were. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but I’ve been finding you my whole life,” Finn says. “You’re important to me. Maybe the most important person. I don’t know why, but it’s true.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t say that to me,” Kurt says, backing away from Finn until he hits the open closet and knocks the hangers with his head, sending the letterman jacket swinging off the hanger and down to the floor. “Stop doing this to me! Just stay dead!”

“Kurt,” Finn says softly. “You’re my brother.”

“Just stay dead!” Kurt yells, putting his arm across his face. 

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Kurt’s shoulders start to shake with the sobs he can’t back any longer, but he still doesn’t look up at Finn, at the impossible hallucination of Finn. “Just go away.”

“I think I’m going now, anyway,” Finn says, his voice becoming fuzzy and distant. “I’ll see you soon, little brother. In my time, anyway.”

When Kurt takes his arm away from his face, the room is empty. He picks the letterman jacket up from the floor and slips it on, wrapping it around him. He can still smell Finn in the jacket. Time hasn’t taken that yet, the smell of the _real_ Finn. Kurt cries for a while, then he hangs the jacket back up, goes to the bathroom to splash cold water on his face, and returns to the living room to make himself smile through the rest of Christmas. 

***

Kurt is just-turned-22 when he and Blaine get married. Rachel is Kurt’s attendant, Blaine’s brother Cooper is Blaine’s, and neither Blaine nor Kurt ever, _ever_ , used the term “best man” while discussing wedding plans. Kurt is the tallest member of the wedding party, and it makes for beautiful composition of the photographs. Kurt would have sacrificed perfectly composed photographs to have one very tall best man throwing off the balance. 

Carole cries through the wedding and skips most of the reception. Kurt can’t blame her. He can’t skip his own wedding or reception, nor does he really want to, but seeing all the old faces gathered together again makes Kurt want to hide for a little while, at least. They’ve all moved on. Most of them probably go for weeks, maybe even months, without thinking about Finn. Even Kurt is guilty of lettings weeks go by where he forgets he ever had a brother, forgets about those three strange moments when he brain forgot he’d _lost_ a brother. 

And yet, he’s somehow not surprised when, two days into his honeymoon, he suddenly hears Finn’s voice beside him as he walks down the black sand Hawaiian beach while Blaine parasails in the distance. 

“What’s up with this sand?” Finn says, his voice still familiar, though higher than Kurt’s ever heard it.

Kurt looks to the side at a possibly 10 or 11 year old Finn, strolling beside Kurt, dressed in most of an ill-fitting black suit, minus a tie. “Hello, Finn,” Kurt says.

“Hey, Kurt,” Finn says. His face is rounder, his skin still baby-smooth, but the smile is the same. “When are we?”

“I just got married three days ago.”

“Miguel?” Finn asks, sounding hopeful.

Kurt shakes his head. “No, Blaine. Who’s this Miguel you keep talking about?”

“Never mind,” Finn says. “So, guess what?”

“There is absolutely no way I’m going to be able to guess,” Kurt says.

“Mindy Graham _totally_ danced with me at the dance tonight!” Finn announces proudly. “She’s the cutest girl in the whole sixth grade.”

“Then I’m very proud of you,” Kurt says. 

“Thanks!” Finn says, grinning. Kurt can see small elastic spacers between some of Finn’s teeth.

“Braces soon?” Kurt asks.

“Yeah, in a week,” Finn grumbles. “It sucks.”

“You know, you have a lovely smile by high school.”

“Geez, I _know_ , okay? You don’t have to tell me that every single time,” Finn says, scowling now and pressing his lips together after, so Kurt can’t see his teeth at all.

“Sorry about that. I haven’t seen you at all for a while, you know. Years, even,” Kurt tells him.

“Oh, it’s the gap?”

“The gap?”

“Yeah, it’s what we call the time when I don’t see you,” Finn explains. “You think it’s funny. You tell me ‘mind the gap’. I thought it was a tooth joke, but you said it isn’t.”

“Probably not,” Kurt says. “Though you do have a little bit of a gap still, don’t you?” He pokes Finn’s upper teeth with one finger, laughing when Finn jerks away, swatting at Kurt’s hand.

“Did you miss me?” Finn asks. 

“I did,” Kurt says. “I’m still not sure I’m not completely crazy, mind you, but I did miss you.”

Finn grins widely at Kurt. His top teeth really do have a bit of a gap and are still just a little bit too big for his mouth. “Well, yeah, ‘cause I’m awesome!” 

“You are.”

“It’s not your fault, you know,” Finn tells him.

“What? You being awesome?” Kurt asks, amused.

“Nah. That’s kinda your fault. You’ll see,” Finn says. “But, stuff’s gonna happen. I never can figure out for sure what I’m supposed to tell or not. Later-you always tells me to error on the side of not.”

“Err, probably?”

“Yeah, that,” Finn agrees cheerfully, looking off at the horizon. “Oh, holy shit, is that a dolphin?”

“Are you supposed to use that kind of language?” Kurt asks.

“Nah, but what’re you gonna do, tell Mom?” Finn asks, grinning even wider. 

Kurt sighs as he shakes his head. “No, I suppose not.”

“But like I was saying, stuff’s gonna happen, and none of it’s your fault. And when you need me, I’m gonna be there,” Finn says.

“Glad to know a ten-year-old’s got my back.”

“Hey! I’m eleven!”

“My apologies, an eleven-year-old,” Kurt says.

“I’m not sayin’ I’ll still be eleven,” Finn says. “I think I’m older for most of it. I don’t think I see you when I’m younger until Miguel, unless I’m getting my timeline all mixed up.”

“Miguel again?”

“Sorry. You’re gonna be sooooo pissed off at me!”

“Well, that’s between you and future-me, I guess,” Kurt says. “I promise I won’t breathe a word.”

“Thanks, Kurt,” little Finn says. “I can’t wait to meet you for real. I think I’ve still got some years left, though.”

“I think so. It was freshman year of high school for me.”

“Am I awesome?” Finn asks.

“ _So_ awesome,” Kurt says. “I was in love with you for two years.”

Finn sticks out his tongue and makes a horrible face. “Kuuurrrrt, ewwwww! You’re old! And you’re my brother!” 

“Not when I met you, I wasn’t!” Kurt says, laughing at Finn’s face. 

“Still. That’s so gross!”

“Just... try to remember enough about me to not blame me too much,” Kurt says. “I don’t know about this-you back then. I don’t mean to be how I am.”

“Well, as long as _you_ don’t blame you too much, either,” Finn says.

“I won’t,” Kurt says. He and Finn walk along the beach for a while, watching as Blaine’s parasail gets reeled in to the speed boat again. Kurt asks, “So, what do I tell Blaine about you?” but Finn doesn’t answer, because Finn is gone.

“See you next time, big brother,” Kurt whispers. He sits on the beach and waits for the boat to come in, Blaine splashing up through the water, his hair tousled and his skin golden-brown and a little wind-chapped.

“Were you talking to a kid?” Blaine asks. “I thought I saw a kid.”

Kurt nods. “Yes, but he’s gone back home now.”

“Good,” Blaine says. “So I can do this.” He pulls Kurt into a kiss, and Kurt tries to put his time-traveling brother and any worries about the future out of his mind.

***

Kurt is 24 when Blaine has the affair, and he’s seen Finn six more times since his the honeymoon in Hawaii two years ago. Usually Finn is fourteen or fifteen. Once time, Finn is eight, and seems very confused that Kurt is still married to Blaine. Kurt isn’t any less confused than Finn.

Kurt knows about the affair for close to four months before Blaine confesses it. Kurt had all the proof he needed, but he kept waiting anyway. Blaine would cut it off. Blaine would make it right. If Kurt could just wait long enough, Blaine would fix it, and would spend the rest of their marriage making it up to Kurt. Kurt pretends he doesn’t think about Finn and the “don’t blame yourself.” He keeps his hopes up, hoping for Blaine, hoping for their life together. 

Instead, Blaine breaks down in tears over dinner and tells Kurt that he’s so, so very very sorry, but he’s fallen in love with someone else. Kurt nods, feeling numb, and remembers the last time Blaine confessed to being with someone else. Kurt has colleagues and friends, many of them the kind of good, close friend that Kurt knows he could count on in an emotional crisis. None of them is the same as having a brother. He wishes, more than anything, that Finn, any Finn, even little confused eight-year-old Finn or cocky eleven-year-old Finn, would appear, but he doesn’t. Kurt doesn’t see Finn again for another few months. 

***

Kurt is 24-almost-25 when he gets divorced, and once again, the size of his family is significantly reduced, which seems to be par for the course for Kurt. In times like these, Kurt is glad he’s an atheist, because he cannot conceive of the cruelty of a God that would give him family and then take them away. Some of them over and over again. 

Finn shows up a few days after the divorce is finalized, limping badly on one side as he walks down the sidewalk to the table outside the cafe where Kurt has taken to sitting alone and feeling sorry for himself.

“It took you long enough,” Kurt says, more bitterly than he intends.

“I got held up,” Finn says, pulling out a chair and easing himself down into it. “It’s been rough lately. I haven’t traveled as much. I think I’m afraid of where I’ll pop up when I get back.”

“What’s wrong with your leg?” Kurt asks, suddenly concerned. “Finn, what happened?”

“Basic training,” Finn answers, his face darkening. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay. If you don’t want to, we won’t.”

“Thanks,” Finn says.

“I missed you,” Kurt says. 

“Yeah, I missed you, too. I haven’t seen you since the last time I saw you in my timeline,” Finn tells him. “I think I stay a few hours this time. Are you...?”

“Divorced,” Kurt says quickly. “Living alone. You’re welcome to the sofa for as long as you’re here.”

“Thanks, Kurt. I owe you one.”

“Finn, you have no idea how much I owe you. No idea.”

Finn reaches across the table and takes Kurt’s hand. They sit at the cafe holding hands until the sun starts to sink, the Kurt escorts Finn back to his apartment, letting Finn leans his weight on Kurt’s shoulders as they go up the stairs. Finn looks embarrassed at his need for help, but he doesn’t protest.

At the apartment, Kurt busies himself finding Finn something suitable to sleep in, since it’s not like he travels with a bag. He whips up a quick dinner for both of them and tries not to stare at Finn as they eat. Finn still notices.

“What?” Finn asks.

“You’re so much older than I’ve seen you,” Kurt says. “Since...”

“Since I died,” Finn says. “Yeah.” 

“Is it hard, knowing that?” Kurt asks.

“Yes and no.” Finn shrugs. “I usually only know it when I’m here with you, and it’s already too late by then.”

“I’m sorry,” Kurt says. “I really am.”

Finn shrugs again. “I’m not complaining. I’m just getting all my time on the front end. It’s different, but it’s still good.”

“I’m still sorry.” They sit quietly for a few minutes, before Kurt blurts out, “Am I the one who tells you?”

Finn shakes his head. “Nah, nobody ever has to tell me. I kind of pieced it together on my own, then I Googled myself. There’s a time or two that I show up in your timeline, but you aren’t there. Maybe I miss you by a few minutes or overshoot or something. I need something to do with myself.”

“Did it upset you?” Kurt asks.

“Nah. Just confirmed what I already knew,” Finn says. “I’m just luckier than most people.”

Kurt smiles at Finn and take his hand again, runs his thumb across Finn’s knuckles. “I missed you. _This_ you.”

“Yeah, this-me’s missed you, too,” Finn says. “Sometimes I remember now. Not the dying part, but the other stuff, did you know that? Do I ever mention it to you?”

“Would I have believed you if you had?” Kurt asks wryly.

“Probably not,” Finn concedes. “But we’re really brothers now, you know? In my timeline. I really feel like we’re a family.”

“We _are_ a family, Finn,” Kurt says fiercely. “We are. Until the day you die, and beyond that. You will always be my brother. Do you understand me?” Finn nods. “ _Finn Hudson_ , I asked if you understand me!”

“Yes, Kurt,” Finn says, wide-eyed and nodding. 

“If you don’t remember anything else when you go back to your timeline, you remember that. I always love you, and you are always my brother, Finn.”

“Okay,” Finn says. “I won’t. You’re always my brother, too, Kurt. You always have been. Since before I can even remember.”

Kurt engulfs Finn in a hug, and they sit together on the sofa, with their arms around each other, for a long time, Kurt lost in the feel of his brother’s arms around him again, and how Finn still smells so close to how Kurt remembers him smelling. After a long while, Finn goes limp in Kurt’s arms. Kurt realizes that Finn has fallen into a sound sleep, so he eases Finn down onto a throw pillow and pulls a blanket up over him.

“Please be here when I wake up,” Kurt whispers, running his hand across Finn’s army-short hair. “Please, please.”

When Kurt wakes up, Finn is gone, but he’s left behind a little note. “Go back to that cafe,” it says. “Trust me.” 

***

 

Kurt is 27 when he marries Miguel, beautiful Argentine Miguel, whom he met at his favorite cafe just a few months after his divorce. The ceremony is a very small affair at a courthouse in New York, a location with no emotional baggage attached. The only reminders of his old life in Lima are Burt, Carole, and Rachel, and even Rachel is so much more a creature of New York than she ever was a girl of Ohio.

Instead of a reception, Kurt and Miguel and their families and a handful of their friends book a private room in a restaurant, and everyone drinks good wine and tells stories and laughs until Kurt and Miguel climb into a horse-drawn carriage. They kiss under the bubbles as the carriage pulls away. Kurt wishes Finn could be there, since it was Finn who insisted he keep going to that cafe, and Finn who insisted he let Miguel take him out on a second date. Since Finn isn’t, though, Kurt just sends his love and his gratitude out into the universe and hopes that somehow, somewhere, Finn feels it. 

Kurt and Miguel have been married for three months when Miguel calls to him from the bathroom, in a confused, yet strangely calm-sounding voice, “Kurt, my love? There’s a little boy in our bathtub.”

“Ah,” Kurt says, walking into the bathroom. Little four-year-old Finn giggles and waves at Kurt, fully clothed in the tub full of hot water. “Miguel, sweetheart. This is my brother Finn.”

Miguel nods his head slowly, and Finn splashes in the tub while Kurt tries to explain, “He’s... I know this sounds crazy, but you have to hear me out. He’s a time traveler. No, I swear I’m not—”

“Kurt, my love?” Miguel interjects. “He appeared out of thin air in front of my eyes. If you are crazy, then I am crazy as well.” 

For the first time since Finn’s death, Kurt feels completely whole. This, right here and right now, this is his family, all aware of each other, all together. Miguel and Kurt get Finn a towel when the bath water gets cold, and they strip his soaking wet clothes of him, Miguel tossing them into the dryer while Kurt helps Finn towel off.

“My toes awe winkly,” Finn declares, holding up his foot for Kurt to see.

“I see that,” Kurt says somberly. “Do they hurt?”

“Nope, they’ah just waisins,” Finn says. “I have waisin fingahs, too, see? You see, Kuwt?”

“I see them. Those are some impressive fingers and toes, Finn,” Kurt says.

“I _missed_ you, Kuwt,” Finn declares, when Kurt pulls one of his t-shirts over Finn’s head. It comes down past Finn’s knees. “You and Miguel. I wanna stay with you fowevah. I think Mommy says it’s okay.”

“I think your Mommy would miss you far too much if you stayed with us forever, Finn,” Kurt says, planting a kiss on top of Finn’s head. “But I wish you could. You can come and visit me and Miguel any time you want, as often as you want.”

“‘Cause you awe my bwother,” Finn says. He rubs his eyes. “I am not any tiwed at all.”

“I know you aren’t. We can watch a movie for a while, how’s that?”

“That’s good. I will sit with you. Miguel can hold the popcown.”

“Oh, will there be popcorn?” Kurt asks lightly.

“Always,” Finn says. “You always make me popcown and we always watch a movie.”

“That’s what we’ll do, then,” Kurt says, “since we _always_ do it.”

Kurt puts on the most recent Disney movie—Miguel’s guilty pleasure very much working in their favor—while Miguel makes popcorn, and then three of them sit together on the sofa, Finn sprawled across Kurt’s lap. Kurt runs his fingers through Finn’s hair while Miguel watches them, half-dumbfounded and half-awed. The bowl of popcorn runs out long before the movie is over, and Finn falls asleep, his body limp and heavy on Kurt’s legs, before the happily ever after.

“How do you stand it?” Miguel asks quietly, taking Kurt’s hand.

“It’s the only way I still have a brother,” Kurt explains. “He’s been doing this since he died. I know it’s crazy. I thought _I_ was crazy for years, but he’s Finn, he really is. He’s my brother, and I love him.”

“I know,” Miguel says. “He is a sweet little boy.”

“He was a sweet man, too,” Kurt says, the tears starting to drip down his face. “I’m afraid.”

“What of, my love?” Miguel asks, brushing away Kurt’s tears.

“That any time I see him will be the last time,” Kurt confesses. “He told me once he saw me when I was forty, but he was thirteen at the time. What does forty look like to a thirteen-year-old? Or a four-year-old?”

“I don’t know, my love,” Miguel says. “We’ll enjoy all the time with him that we have.”

“He’s the reason I even met you. He told me to go back to that cafe, and I did, over and over again, and one day you were there,” Kurt says, crying harder.

Miguel smiles and leans over to kiss Kurt. “Then he’s even more precious to me,” he says. 

Kurt, Miguel, and Finn sleep on the sofa all night. Just before dawn, Kurt feels Finn stirring, squirming like he’s trying to untangle himself from some invisible force, and right after Kurt puts a hand on Finn’s chest to comfort him, feeling Finn’s little heart hammering away under his palm, Finn lets out a tiny gasp and disappears. Kurt is still crying with Miguel wakes up, and they hold each other on the sofa with the morning light streaming in. 

“You will see him again,” Miguel promises. “I know you will.”

***

Kurt is 33-nearly-34 when he and Miguel adopt their son, and Finn comes to visit more often than ever. One day he’s twelve, pubescent and angry, and another he’s seven, his oversized front teeth and freckled face making him look like a cartoon chipmunk. He’s a high school senior in love with Rachel, he’s three with a skint knee and in love with his babysitter, he’s eleven and in love with Mindy, he’s fifteen and in love with Quinn. He’s in his late teens several visits in a row, and from the best he and Kurt can figure out together, those visits are consecutive, or nearly so. Finn is thrilled to hear about the impending adoption, but he stubbornly refuses to tell Kurt anything at all about the baby. 

The baby, when he comes, is a tiny, fragile, reddish thing that looks more like a freshly-hatched baby bird than the Gerber baby. They think he’s beautiful anyway. Miguel suggests “Finn” for a name, but Kurt just shakes his head no. It’s too big a burden for a tiny new baby boy, a name that comes with both so much time and so little. Instead, they name him Tomás after Miguel’s grandfather. 

One night, Kurt wakes up to the sound of Tomás crying through the baby monitor, but before he can rise to hurry to Tomás’s crib, Miguel puts a hand on Kurt’s shoulder.

“Shh,” Miguel whispers. Kurt stops and listens, then he hears it, the soft _pop_ , barely audible, that sometimes heralds Finn’s arrival. Within seconds, Tomás’s cries cease, replaced by Finn’s voice, gently crooning ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’. Kurt doesn’t know how old Finn is on that visit, because he’s gone before morning, but from that moment, Tomás always calms immediately when Kurt sings his uncle’s song. 

***

Kurt is 34. Tomás has just said his first word, and that word is “Finn.”

“Shit,” Kurt mutters, covering the now-verbal Tomás’s ears. “What do we do?”

“Your parents won’t understand,” Miguel says. 

“How could they? I think it would kill Carole if she saw him,” Kurt agrees, “but I never thought about what to do if Tomás ratted us out! Finn never said anything about it!”

“Then, we must trust that it works out as it must, my love,” Miguel says. “What else can we do? You have a magical brother who travels through time. Some complications are bound to arise from that.”

“I could _kill_ him,” Kurt mutters.

“I don’t think you can kill someone who is already dead,” Miguel reasons.

“Dammit, you’re right,” Kurt sighs. “Then if he’s under the age of twelve the next time I see him, I’m grounding him.”

“That sounds perfectly fair,” Miguel agrees. 

When Tomás proudly declares “Finn!” to his Grandma, Carole is beside herself. “Oh, Kurt, how does he even know that name?” she asks.

“We bring out the picture album a lot,” Kurt says, looking at Miguel and hoping that this story they have concocted does the trick. “We want him to know his uncle.”

“You sweet, sweet man,” Carole says to Kurt, pulling Tomás to her. “You sweet, sweet little boy.”

“Finn!” Tomás says again, grinning his little baby-grin. 

***

Kurt is 37, Tomás is three, little Daniela is eleven months old, and Finn appears to be not quite 18 months old, crying on the floor of Tomás and Daniela’s bedroom. Kurt scoops tiny Finn up in his arms and holds him, rocking and shushing him, but Finn keep crying. He cries for over an hour before he finally gives up the fight and falls into a sudden, hard sleep.

“I think this is his first time,” Kurt says, voice hushed and awed. “Miguel, I think this is the first time he travels.”

“He seemed frightened,” Miguel agrees. “What sent him off, do you think?”

Kurt thinks for a moment, and when he makes the connection, he gasps in realization, and it’s only sleeping Finn in his arms that keeps him from putting his hand to his mouth. “His father,” Kurt whispers. “His father died from a drug overdose when Finn was just a baby. Finn was alone with him when he died.”

“Do you think that is this Finn’s today?” Miguel asks. 

“I think it’s possible,” Kurt says, rocking the sleeping baby in his arms. “Oh, Finn. Oh, my poor baby.” 

Finn sniffles in his sleep and then relaxes, curling towards Kurt and gripping his shirt. Kurt holds him and pets his soft, fine baby hair for hours, Miguel beside him. Finn lets out one more loud sniffle, then disappears from Kurt’s arms. 

“He goes so easily when he’s sleeping,” Kurt says. 

“Less of a jolt, I imagine,” Miguel says.

“I miss him already.”

“I do, too, my love. I do, too.”

***

Kurt is 38, Tomás is four, Daniela is two, and Finn is barely-three. He’s a chubby-cheeked, chubby-legged toddler, who Tomás and Daniela both adore from the very first moment they see him, and he doesn’t leave. Not that night, not the next night, not the next _week_. Kurt and Miguel quickly realize that this time might be a long haul, so they come up with the explanation of “foster child” for the neighbors, of an oh-what-a-coincidence neighbor child for when Tomás and Daniela ramble on over the phone about their “new brother” Finn to Grandma and Grandpa. 

“We’ve tried to explain,” Kurt says weakly into the phone, watching Finn and Tomás building a block tower, a good two months after Finn appeared. “But they insist he’s their brother. I hope these neighbors stay for quite a while, or they’ll be broken-hearted.”

“It’s so sweet, that they have a special Finn in their lives, too,” Carole says, with a little sniffle. 

“Yeah, he’s a nice little boy. A lot like our Finn,” Kurt says. 

Miguel teaches Finn to count to ten and the names of all the colors in Spanish. Tomás and Finn are so close in size, despite the roughly one-year age difference, that the two can share a wardrobe. Daniela follows him around like a puppy, and Finn tolerates her with infinite patience. 

“My bwudda,” Finn says, when Kurt holds him. “My liddal bwudda.”

“That’s right, Finn. I’m your little brother,” Kurt says. “And I love you. I love you so much.”

“I lub you!” Finn agrees. “Kuwt an’ Middel an’ Tomm an’ Danni.”

“We all love you. You’re our Finn, and we all love you,” Kurt says. 

Finn stays with them for nearly seven months. Kurt can’t imagine what it must have been like for Carole, the sensation of her son having grown so much overnight, and he can’t imagine how Finn must have cried for them. Kurt cries, too, and Tomás and Daniela sleep in the bed with Kurt and Miguel for several nights in a row, all of them crying over their Finn, gone once again, gone before they were ready. 

***

Kurt is 42 when Burt has his second heart attack. Finn is already there when Kurt gets the call. He holds Kurt’s hand as Carole assures Kurt over and over that Burt is fine, really, that he’s recovering just fine. Finn looks sad and older than his sixteen years should allow.

“What is it?” Kurt asks. “What?”

“I’m just wishing I could be there for you,” Finn says sadly.

“You are here, Finn.”

“For all of you. For Mom. For good. I wish I could really stick around when you need me.”

Kurt takes Finn’s hand in his and squeezes. “I’m just grateful for any time we have together.”

“I know,” Finn says. “But still...”

Kurt nods. What else is there to say?

 

***

Kurt is 47 when Burt has his third, and final, heart attack. Kurt has known for years that it was coming, has suspected from Finn’s response to the second heart attack, that death was just around the corner yet again, but that doesn’t soften the blow, especially not when he has to hold Carole through the subsequent funeral planning, has to handle the house sale because she just can’t live there anymore. Kurt still has Miguel. He has Tomás and Daniela. He has, in his own strange and non-linear way, his brother. None of that can diminish Carole’s grief. 

Kurt, Miguel, and the children empty out the house while Carole stays the night with her sister in Bath. In the back of the closet, in the room that used to be Kurt’s, Kurt finds Finn’s old letterman jacket. For a moment, he’s happy, inappropriately and joyfully happy, and he holds to jacket to his face, but it’s been twenty-five years since Finn last wore it. The jacket smells like nothing but old wool, aging leather, and dust. 

He prepares himself for a wash of grief, but it’s been twenty-five years since Finn’s death for him, too, and Finn’s death is so disconnected from Finn himself, for Kurt. All most people get after the death of a loved one is dust and memory, but Kurt still gets Finn, so many Finns, tiny Finn to teenage Finn, and a letterman jacket and its memories can’t compete. 

“I’m sorry,” Finn says, after appearing out of thin air in the guest bedroom, while Miguel and the children are boxing up old books in the basement.

“How do you even know?” Kurt asks. “How can you know?”

Finn smiles sadly and shrugs. “I know what death looks like, Kurt. I know what you look like.”

Kurt nods. “I feel so old today, Finn.”

“Me, too,” Finn says.

“How old are you now?” Kurt asks. “In your time?”

“Fifteen. Quinn slept with Puck. The baby isn’t mine.”

“I’m so sorry,” Kurt says gently. 

“I’ll never forgive them,” Finn insists. He balls up his fists and turns away from Kurt.

“You will,” Kurt promises. “You will, one day.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, Finn. But you will. That’s just who you are,” Kurt says. “You forgive. You forgive and you love. I don’t know how you do it, but you do it _so hard_ , for so long.”

“Do you still miss me?” Finn asks.

“Every day, big brother,” Kurt swears. “Every single day.”

“I miss you, too, when I remember,” Finn says. “I wish I could remember you when I’m in my own time.”

“I wish I could have known you better in your own time,” Kurt says.

“You know me now,” Finn says.

Kurt nods. “I do. I do, and I’m so grateful.”

“Love you, little brother,” Finn says.

“Love you, too, big brother.”

***

Kurt is 86 and dying from acute renal failure. The children and the grandchildren have been diligent in visiting him, but everyone knows now that it’s just a matter of time. The hospice care nurse has done what she can to make Kurt comfortable, but at 86, comfortable is relative, even without kidney failure being in the picture. 

He has had many times in his life when he’s been grateful that he doesn’t believe in God, and many times when he regretted that he couldn’t. Now, facing death, he suddenly wishes he did, if only for the fantasy of someone waiting for him on some other side that Kurt doesn’t believe exists. Kurt is afraid. He tells himself he should be grateful for all the time he had, the legacy he’s left behind, the extra years that no one else was granted, but he’s still afraid. He misses Burt and Carole. He misses Miguel. He misses Finn. 

Night falls, and his nurse leaves him to rest for the evening, with a button to press if he needs her. Kurt is so tired. When he closes his eyes, he feels a hand on his, warm and large. Sixty-seven years since he last held that particular hand at its particular size, and he still knows exactly who and when it is. 

“Finn,” Kurt says. “It’s been a long time.”

“Hey, Kurt,” Finn answers. “How you feeling?”

“Old. So very old,” Kurt answers, then laughs. 

“I know what you mean,” Finn says. Kurt would have claimed, before tonight, that any curiosity had long since left him, but something in Finn’s voice makes him ask.

“How old are you Finn?”

“I’m nineteen,” Finn asks, and he squeezes Kurt’s hand. “I’m nineteen, and I’m not getting any older.”

Kurt opens his eyes and looks at Finn, at the Finn that Kurt last saw in his own timeline, _his_ Finn. “So soon?” Kurt asks.

“Tonight, I think,” Finn says. “But I’m not scared.”

Kurt shakes his head, the tiniest movement. “How are you not scared?”

“Because I’m not going alone. You waited for me,” Finn says simply.

“I think you waited for me,” Kurt argues.

“It’s the same thing, Kurt. Either way, it’s the same thing, isn’t it?”

Kurt clutches Finn’s hand tightly, looks at Finn’s sweet face with its warm smile. “I was so scared, Finn. I was so scared to go alone.”

Finn squeezes Kurt’s hand a final time. The last thing Kurt hears is, “I’ve got you little brother. I’ve got you.”


End file.
